Please excuse me while I work some kind of schedule out, I’m thinking regular Friday preview/Monday review with randomness in between, we’ll see how it goes, great plans and all that…

It was certainly an interesting weekend all over, the biggest news is around Ronaldinho leaving Barcelona for AC Milan, maybe, as the two team have to agree compensation, which is most likely more money that you can imagine (and I can imagine a lot), but Inter have thrown their hat in the ring to (for lack of a better term) cockblock their rivals. I’m surprised Manchester United haven’t been mention yet as they were “in” for him after David Beckham left for Real Madrid, of course they ended up with Cristiano Ronaldo, and I think that worked out pretty good for them.

Speaking of Manchester United, they came back from a goal down to knock Arsenal out of the Premier League race, and if I do say so myself, that Owen Hargreaves free kick is what we like to call “a peach.” The defeat means Arsenal go trophyless for a 3rd straight year, a trend they’ll have to turn round next year or Arsene Wenger might be feeling more than a little pressure, some would say he already is and is very close to cracking, time will tell. the win has United 6 points clear of Chelsea, but Chelsea have a game in hand, the two meet on April 26th at Stamford Bridge, expect fireworks.

My recommended MLS game didn’t live up the the English Premier League one, Houston and Kansas City played out a pretty drab draw in pretty atrocious conditions. And call me old fashioned, but playing football in a baseball stadium seems wrong. Yes I know DC United do it, or at least used to, but it’s just wrong. The sooner more teams can have proper football stadiums the better we’ll all be, playing in cavernous NFL stadiums doesn’t help much either. right now we only have 6 football stadiums in the MLS, more are coming in the upcoming couple of years, a step in the right direction as I feel playing in large stadiums like Giants Stadiums doesn’t really put the attendance into proper perspective, like New England drawing 8,000 in a 70,000 seater stadium, but I digress…

Now, if you excuse my biased bias, I turn my attention to the big showdown in Scotland, well one of the big showdowns, on Wednesday. Currently Rangers are 4 points clear, two games in hand, so if Celtic want to have any chance of winning the league, they need to win every game from now on. Rangers are on a little bit of a roll, they’ve not lost a game in the league since October of last year, their on target for a unique quadruple (Scottish Premier League, Scottish League Cup, Scottish Cup and UEFA Cup), one is already in the bag, if they make the final of the Scottish Cup they face the almighty Queen Of The South (who bounced Aberdeen in a thrilling 7 goal encounter). So all that stands between them and glory is two game with Celtic in the next 2 weeks. Oh and the little matter of 2 games against Fiorentina then the winner of Bayer Leverkusen and Getafe…

Now I’m going to put my neck out. Bold prediction time. Crystal ball time. Take it to the bank. Celtic 1 Rangers 2, scorers: Scott McDonald for Celtic, Jean Claude Darcheville (2) for Rangers. I also forsee a dozen yellow cards and at least one sending off. Basically your typical Old Firm game.